All I Once Possessed
by drama-princess
Summary: This is a story of a love that waxed and waned under the cool eye of life; a love that if set to burn, would have consumed us all.
1. Prologue

A/N: I suppose I'd best to get the warnings out of the way at the first-- this story deals with a non-explicit F/F relationship. The two characters are original ones, based on the you see briefly during Zidler's Rap. One of the women is dressed in a man's suit, and the other wears a beret, and they sing Entertain us. There are also mentions of bisexuality and voyeurism, but once again, absolutely nothing explicit. All other relationships are canon, but if you think you'd be offended by this, please do us both a favour and don't read. This is a very different thing for me to write, so I hope you'll be kind and leave a review if you enjoyed it and would like it to continue. Blame my plot bunny and muse. It's all their fault.   


  
All I Once Possessed  
  
_They brought a quilled, yellow dahlia,  
To me who am barren  
Shall I send it to you,  
You who have taken with you  
All I once possessed?   
  
_Amy Lowell_, Autumn_  


  
November 4, 1902  
  
Her roses are still here. Cracked, brittle, and dry-- an occasional careless touch will shatter the edges of a petal. They are a dark red-brown tinged with black, like blood that has dried on a white gown. Once crimson, once vital and glowing with the dew that gathered pearl-like on the blossoms, now faded into a shabby memory. It's a metaphor that my writer's soul just can't resist, I suppose.   
  
I sigh, and take another sip of the warm milk. It calms insomnia well enough, but the taste isn't much to speak of. In the recesses of my heart, I can hear Marguerite mocking me. She never would have succumbed to sleeplessness. She was always strong; ruthlessly so, I say now that she's gone. How she would have laughed at my polite description of her! The words she would say ring clearly in my heart, even though it's been nearly two years since we last spoke. I can still hear her, you know. I wonder if Christian can conjure up Satine's voice as easily as I can Marguerite's. I smile at that thought, albeit a little sadly, and take another drink from my lukewarm teacup.   
  
Come and drink champagne with me, darling! Leave that dreary stuff and do-- oh, what does Harry say? Live a little bit? Clichéd and fairly useless, but this her careless voice calls to me from my memory. Can't I see her even now, wrapped in a dirty linen sheet, smiling vaguely at me as she takes another slow drag on her cigarette? I close my eyes, anchoring myself to the world as she continues to wave me closer in my mind. Her gestures are quick and tender, just as they were in reality. My memories of her are so vivid that I sometimes start to find that my bed is cold without her beside me. It isn't pain, not any longer, just a stunned sense of apathy.   
  
_How I miss her.   
  
_I pour the rest of the milk onto my potted blossoms suddenly, my wrist turning as if beyond my control. The liquid flows out into mother earth as if coming home, a stream of bleached lifeblood. With exquisite care, I rinse the fluted cup and place it on the embroidered cloth I made in those months after. My fingers trail across the raised depiction of a shepherdess. She smiles up at me cheerfully, nothing like Marguerite's cruel, tight-lipped smile. I sewed her golden curls and rosy cheeks, a gossamer dress that waves in the imagined drifts of summer breeze, a bonnet that lies smoothly against her hair. After.  
  
After. That's what I call it now. I painted these cups then, you know. Roses and lilies now bloom on that cold china in a parody of life. I don't know if Marguerite would even recognize the flat now, with all the domestic changes I've wrought. I can visualize that encounter, my bitterly light words, the bored expression on her own face.   
  
_For a year, Marguerite-- a year-- I couldn't write, I say angrily. I sewed dresses and curtains, braided rugs, perfumed soaps and trimmed hats. I spit the words at her. They are pretty occupations, ones that she and I used to scorn when we were lovers. When we spent sweet nights in each other's arms, when she used to caress me in her terrible, beautiful way.   
  
I have several lovely hats now, I continue, my tone ostensibly that of idle millinery gossip, but I know she can hear the edge beneath it. She knows my voice, my former love. She shrinks back into her chair, but her expression does not change. Smoke curls from the cigarette in her fingers. She remains silent. Her slim legs are crossed, so I can see the filmy black stockings she still wears. The turn of her ankle is as graceful as ever.  
  
My favorite, dearest, is a pretty silver-grey straw with silken white roses. It goes beautifully with a smart new poplin. Stainless white and beautifully woven, so that it shimmers just slightly. I bought some grey silk the colour of my hat a few days ago, did you know that? For a sash, something to freshen it up just a bit. _   
  
I stop my imagined tirade, my breath coming faster in spite of my best efforts to remain unaffected. It is useless to pretend that I don't long for her still. The flush that burns on my cheeks as the thought of her kiss is proof enough of that. I glance over at the bed in spite of myself. I burned all the blankets when she left, watching the crimson satin burn in the purer flame with a grim set to my mouth. Her scents were permanently intertwined with that fabric. The insinuating perfume she wore, that cold oriental smell that I cannot taste without growing pale. I want her some nights, so desperately that I turn into my white sheets and weep for the burning need that manifests itself in my limbs.   
  
Perhaps Christian _is _right, and it is time. And yet it seems too raw to even consider such a thing. To write our story; to admit to the world that yes, my lover betrayed me, left me, abandoned me.   
  
The paper he brought for me waits on my hardwood desk. It is still wrapped in the silk ribbon he tied around it after placing it next to my untrimmed pens. I glance over at it, my mouth twisting in spite of myself. My strange friend knows me all too well. He knows that I will come back to the page, in spite-- or perhaps because of it all.   
  
I go to the papers, as I must. I could no sooner turn away from them than I could Marguerite's open embrace. I let my shawl fall to the floor, and take up my pen. This will be an alien story to most minds, far too controversial to be published. It is the story of a love that waxed and waned under the cool eye of life, and a love that, if set to burn, would have consumed us all.   
  
_The men at the Moulin, they called us The Twins. We were just two women, after all-- two creatures slim of hip and hands, with soft masses of ginger hair. Our eyes flashed identical storms of darkness towards the unfortunate customer, or softened equally in moments of tenderness. The only difference between us was I dressed like a man to warn them that I wasn't the one to have your way with; you could only watch me. My other half, as they called her, wore a glittering chemise and petticoat under her short coat.   
  
The Bohemians called us Belle and Aimeé. She was beauty; I love. She modeled for the artists of Montmarte, while I wrote poetry about the ideals of our beautiful movement. Toulouse-Lautrec himself did a painting of Belle in the last years before his death. I have a few sketches from it tucked in my portfolio. It portrays a slender woman, her face sharp, drawn with fine lines and rich lips. Occasionally I will trace the form of her, my belle, my fingers lingering over the faded page, trying to recall the warmth of her skin against mine.   
  
The few women that we developed relationships with used careless endearments. Honey, dearest, lovely, darling. I was Sweetheart,' she was Baby.' We were curious creatures in their eyes, strange, wayward children that gave them what they needed so badly that they found their ways past their wealthy husbands (who were often occupied with a whore in the next room) and gave us their almost-love. I never felt more fulfilled-- or degraded-- than after a night with a woman at the Moulin.   
  
To each other, we were simply Marguerite and Anne. Two women. One love.  
  
This is our story. _  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Bohemian Ideals

A/N: Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed-- this is a bit of a stretch for me, and I'm badly in need of reassurance that I'm not screwing things up utterly. :)  
  
Chapter 1: Bohemian Ideals  
  
I stopped abruptly and pushed my chair away from the table, my fingers shaking as I raised them them to my loose hair. Yes, yes, I had to get dressed. I nervously fastened the satin belt of my kimono, tightening it around my slender waist and warding off the sudden chill that traveled down my body.   
  
_Marguerite tracing the bumps of my spine, that amused smile lingering about her lips as I tried to speak--  
  
_I opened the wardrobe doors and blindly groped for a dress, landing on a pearled chiffon that was hardly practical for a day at my pen, but I tossed onto the bed without a second glance. Black ribbed stockings and my fine lawn underclothes, an old corset and a pair of heavy brown boots-- I dressed with my eyes fixed on that pile of empty papers. Could I really blot the pages with my poor scribbles? Such strange things, empty pages, I mused as I slid my arms through the frilled sleeves of the dress. Seemingly benign, but laden with poisoned memories.   
  
_Like Marguerite.  
  
_I shook the thought away and began brushing the rippling ginger waves that fell to my waist. Staring blankly at the image before me in the looking-glass, I rolled up my front hair into a soft pompadour and tied the rest of my hair in a high knot. A handful of hair that slipped out of my fingers lay heavily against the nape of my neck, and I shivered.   
  
_You should wear your hair like this! Marguerite began curling back heavy locks of my hair next to my ears, her dark eyes sparkling mischievously at my face. I swallowed, suddenly very conscious of her bare arms in contrast to the red satin dress she wore.   
  
_I turned away from the mirror abruptly, ignoring the ridiculous picture I presented with my mismatched clothing and middle-class hairstyle. It was pointless to even attempt normalcy. I would think about Marguerite while dressing, while cooking breakfast, while doing the morning shopping.   
  
I had to exorcise her.   
  
I returned to the desk with a lukewarm cup of coffee heaped with too much cream and took up my pen again. The familiar scratch of nib against paper was strangely soothing, and I returned to my memories. Now I understood Christian's absorption in writing his story. The past is a dangerous element, though. Many a lonely lover has been lost in it. And yet. . .   
  
_The Revolution is all but over now. There are too many stories like mine. Stories of lost loves and ideals. Some are beautiful, as much as La Belle Époque itself.   
  
Some are not.  
  
But they all begin in the same fashion-- a young, idealistic man or woman abruptly declaring themselves for the ideals. Beauty. Truth. Freedom. Love.   
  
Our ridiculous dogma.  
  
I was eighteen when I ran away from my comfortable, middle-class home. Eighteen with a love for all the poets and a keen sense of just how much I did not belong among the gaily lit world of the socialites. The very idea of being with a man, one of _them_, horrified me. I suppose, in retrospect, that I was lucky my parents took my reticence for virgin purity. I have heard stories-- one of the tales not so lovely--   
  
But I was lucky, and slipped away from my life as a delicate ornament with a handful of pilfered francs and a sheaf of pretty verses. I suppose my parents made inquiries for me, although no one has ever come to Montmartre looking for Anne-- it does not do to state my last name. They must have created a story of my death or marriage, and I have no desire to interrupt whatever Mother's latest fantasy is concerning me.   
  
I shan't ever forget the exhilarating dance of my first day in Montmartre. Wandering shyly into a café and sipping a glass of absinthe, I found myself living for the first time in my starved existence. Such beauty that could be found among the best of us! The music was onto wine, the poetry practically falling from everyone's words, and the art! Men and women who had more talent than any of those stuffy artists in my father's study, and they would sketch your visage for a penny! Clay slipped past slender fingers, forming a bowl, a vase, anything. Dancers on the street corners, alternately flirting and dancing their mad can-can.   
  
I still long for those days in the café. How we talked of all our dreams. I still consider it a shame that the respectable world snubbed us. We were the great philosophers of our time. If my pompous older brother had bothered to wander down from the university, his amazement at the sheer intellect of our gatherings might well have convinced him of Bohemian virtues. The Children of the Revolution knew themselves to be the hope of the future. And we were happy. Oh, so happy. We sang sweeter music than I have heard since, played our beloved instruments, and drank our bitter potions-- but above all things, we loved each other.   
  
How we loved.   
  
But I did not know Marguerite in those few, too-sweet weeks of pure idealism. A few men, and once they learned of my ways, women, sent inviting smiles towards me, but I always declined. I was still my mother's daughter in many ways. I wore a corset, and wouldn't smoke. I have never been able to smoke, actually. To take the drug in was merely an invitation to cough bitterly for the next hour. But I loved to see others raise the cigarettes to rouged lips. It was unspeakably alluring. Marguerite used to--  
  
_I stopped writing, suddenly and keenly reminded of an incident in my childhood. Wintertime, and Mother had kept me indoors on account of some trifling cold. My age could not have crossed into early teens yet. Ten or eleven years of age, I suppose, and a small, slight thing with pale braids and long lashes.   
  
_Don't get too close to the fire, Anne, Mother scolded. I shot a nervous glance at her. Mother always seemed a messenger of gloom to me, with her thin hair and black cashmere dress. Mind what I say now. If you're cold, go put on your wool stockings.  
  
My wool stockings-- dreadfully itchy and a trial to look at. I had never been considered vain, but those stockings were the bane of my entire heart. Suffice it to say that I would have frozen without a stitch of clothing rather than voluntarily assume those.   
  
Mother and Father called me passionate' and tempestuous,' but those words meant nothing to me. I only knew that small things were important in life. _  
_  
You ought to be knitting, anyway, Mother continued grimly. I'll go get your things so you may start on those new stockings, Anne. Go sit in the armchair. I'll bring down your shawl.   
  
The shawl was another despised article of clothing, but I don't doubt that I would have obeyed had that wayward lump of coal remained properly in place. _  
  
_It tumbled down the glowing heap of fire like one of the glittering gems in Mother's jewelry box, sending delicate little sparks out like the feathery train of a young courtier. It plunged; and somehow found its way past the iron grate.   
  
_I have never been able to resist the kiss of flame._   
  
I put my small hand out and touched the coal, just a hesitant caress.   
  
_I suppose, in retrospect, that I am lucky I did not try to grasp it. There is a faint scar on my right hand even today.   
  
_The pain spread like a strike on my fingers, beginning at a very small, centralized part of my hand, and then spreading, creeping tiny tongues of agony on my poor skin. I screamed, and Mother entered the room leisurely, her thin lips pressed together with dreaded disapproval. She took in the problem with her sharp, probing glance. She studied the burn dispassionately for a moment, then dropped my hand. Through the red haze of pain that blurred my eyesight, I could see her take up her sewing again.   
  
I told you not to touch that, she said flatly. Perhaps now you'll understand the cost of disobedience, Anne. Now go to Cook and have her put some butter on it.   
  
_I closed my eyes, taking hold to the bedpost as if afraid I might fall . . . into what? The same abyss of heartache and confusion that had thrown its angry shadow over my life? Marguerite, who had stolen my youth and innocence with her slender hands?   
  
_--pushing handfuls of of jewels into her fur muff, begging and sobbing--  
  
_I hid my face in the crook of my arm, trying to hold back the silent tears that would inevitably follow the emergence of that terrible memory. Why now? Oh, Christian, why, why, why did you insist, tell me that I had to write it?   
  
Because I know. His voice sounded tired from the doorway, and I knew that without glancing up that he had let himself in and heard the last sentence that I had involuntarily cried. I know, he repeated, taking a step towards me. God, Anne, did you think it was any easier for me?   
  
I raised my head and shook it, feeling the salt streams of tears slide down to my lips. He came closer and took my hands, drawing me down to sit next to him. He did not try to hold me; even Christian, dear as he was to me, could not embrace me without bringing me closer to a breakdown. I trusted him-- nay, loved him, but the same fears that have haunted me from childhood accompanied his touch as well as any other man's.  
  
I replied softly. But, Christian--  
  
You never mourned, he said gently, raising a hand to cup my cheek. You were there for me when I was lost, Anne, and you were burying it for the sake of--  
  
I shook my head quickly and pressed my fingers to his lips. He began to protest, and then caught my eye, and subsided. I smiled, a little sadly, and looked down at my silken lap. I gestured around at the dainty little flat, at my open jewelry box and the living water of the diamonds that fell onto the table.   
  
It makes it easier, you know, if you simply. . . pretend, Christian. Satine told me that, you know. Do small things, pretty things that don't peer through the gauzy curtains and remind you of what. . . of what you used to be.  
  
He was silent for a long moment after my reply, and I began to worry that I had hurt him; that the reason his eyes were downcast was the memory of the woman he had loved. He reached over, though, and took my hand, assuaging my worries.   
  
Sounds like something she would have laughed, he said finally, his tone deliberately light to keep from reminding us both of that fateful night in which we had lost so much.   
  
But you at least had proof of her faith in the. . . in the end, I said softly. She left the Duke for you, Christian. He was there, his arms full of roses for her, his jewels hanging on her neck, and she still turned to you.  
  
Not everyone can trade diamonds for love, Anne. You know that.   
  
_I _would have. My voice was sharp, and I bit back a wince as I heard my mother in them. Bitterness traced the edge of each word like the razor blush of a knife. I would have, Christian. I offered her everything, and still she turned away.   
  
Toulouse did use to say that Marguerite wasn't much of a Bohemian, you know.   
  
I laughed shortly, and pulled my hands away from Christian's gentle grasp.   
  
Were any of us, in the end?  
  
_Do _you still believe in them? he asked, ignoring my implicit accusation for the real question. I raised my eyebrows and stood, wrapping my arms about my waist as I paced the room.  
  
The ideals?  
  
Beauty, freedom, truth, and love, he said, quietly enough so that the bittersweet longing that I knew still burned in his heart faded away.  
  
Every day I ask myself the same question, I admitted. And every day, the answer is the same.  
  
  
  
Of course.


	3. Beauty

Chapter 2: Beauty  
  
_Toulouse-Lautrec.  
  
Our patron saint, the one who took all our deliberate flaunting of virtue to the outside world. He painted as he lived; vivid, solid lines of colour that grated on the narrow sensibilities. He was delightfully mad, and ridiculously Bohemian. I never saw Toulouse without some lover or other he was busy flirting with or lusting after. I once heard a rather notorious pimp grumble over Toulouse's habits of having a brothel girl on one arm and some slim young artisté on the other.   
  
But he wasn't cruel; oh, never that. We all loved him, even the Dogs at the Moulin who professed to deplore their costume designer. His purse was never empty for those in need, and his heart never closed for anyone. I can't even begin to list the number of happy couples Toulouse brought together with his zany matchmaking. He was peculiar, yes, and a genius, every inch of him.   
  
And one day he painted a girl.   
  
He had nicknamed her Belle' in a fit of fondness rather than truth, for she didn't have the classical grace or pert figure that the whores usually boasted. The lines of her face were drawn sharply with an ink too thin for prettiness, and there was a certain sense of earthiness about her limbs that brought her down from heavenly comparison. But she was poor, and Toulouse wanted a new model to illustrate a poem he'd persuaded me to read at a party the week before.   
  
Thewe you awe! he exclaimed as I picked my way past absinthe bottles and half-painted canvases. Did you bwing youw poetwy?   
  
I nodded and blushed at the puzzled look he'd thrown my prim white organdy when I'd entered. My reflection this morning had assured me that I looked merely dainty and neat, but in this shabby studio, I felt ridiculously overdressed. Toulouse's unspoken words resonated through my soul. This girl? A Bohemian? I felt the familiar choke of tears swell up in my throat. I'd always been sensitive about my appearance, relying on Mother's strict advice to dictate what I wore. But I could no more stand before Toulouse dressed as a pretty young maid than wear calico to Mother's salon, regardless of what anyone had ever told me.   
  
Excuse me, Toulouse, I said quickly, turning out the door. I left some--something outside. I'll return in a moment.   
  
Biting back tears, I pulled off my hat and tossed it in a pile of rubbish near the door, sending the pearl hatpin after it. The black velvet ribbon I wore around my neck followed, and, on a sudden, savage impulse, I shook my hair free of the neat pompadour I always wore. Mother probably would have keeled over at the very thought of wearing my hair _down, _but the rush of rebellion overrode any objections my mind supplied. After tying my thin black shawl around my waist in a gypsy-like fashion, I took an unsteady breath and nodded.   
  
In retrospect, my sensitivity to dress was absurd. But at the moment, it symbolized nothing less than the purest freedom our Revolution held. I have always felt fettered by the fashions. I am amazed that we women permit ourselves to be bound so, by their cages of crinolines and corsets.   
  
It took me a moment to realize that Toulouse was eyeing me from his doorway. Awe aww wight?  
  
I said, shifting my weight to stand proudly. I was a true child of the revolution in those moments, heart and soul devoted to the ideals. I'm coming.   
  
Marguerite told me a month or so after our first meeting, that she'd never seen anyone more beautiful than I in that doorway, with my hair down and my face flushed with such a minor triumph.   
  
_I hesitated for a long moment and laid my pen down. I was living through these words, as Christian had told me I would. Grammar, description, verbs-- these meant nothing to me the moment the ink touched the page.   
  
Why was I writing this? It wasn't for publication's sake, that much was for certain. No one in this time of prose will accept the poetry of two women in love, and I still have hopes of being an acclaimed writer. I had a good many things I ought to be doing in lieu of languishing over an old love-- the letter Christian had brought me this morning was just another reminder of that.   
  
The answer came to my lips simply, and I spoke to the waiting air, listening for the soft sound of my voice to reassure me.   
  
Because you loved. . . because you still love her, more and more with each passing moment, no matter how many letters you receive or jewels you wear. _  
  
Toulouse said with a flourish, pulling a young woman by the hand towards me. I glanced up, my cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and felt my breath steal away from me at the sight of the model. Is our Belle, Mademoiselle Marguerite.   
  
Bonjour, Mademoiselle, the woman before me drawled, her rich contralto blending perfectly with the thin puff of smoke she drew in from her cigarette. Her slim figure, draped in some thin white cloth, stood poised against the dirty morning sunlight like that of a weary dancer's. Her thick auburn hair, twisted up into coils of living bronze, struck me as a peculiar reflection of my own. I put a hand up to my own, feeling slightly faint. Her eyes studied mine and then softened, lending her the final charm to ensnare my heart.   
  
Anne -----, I said softly, breath sliding through parched lips. My name is. . . Anne.   
  
Her eyes drifted down my figure, taking in my body with such a frank appraisal that I nearly took a step back in shock. Her cool dark eyes regarded me brazenly; wantonly, I realized, still faintly stunned by the encounter. She gave me one last amused lift of her eyebrow and then turned follow Toulouse, her slim hips swaying with the sweep of the cloth.   
  
So you're a poet? she called back to me as she positioned herself on the faded chaise.   
  
I said, a little hesitantly, drawing nearer as Toulouse busied himself at his canvas. She threw me a sardonic smile.  
  
That's what they all say, darling. Try to to prove yourself right, won't you?  
  
_That must have been the first and last time I saw for as she truly was. A pretty, half-clever, coarse sort of girl with just the right sort of allure to garner a few frances. But she aspired to be more, and I loved her for it. There were moments-- moments that swelled with the golden lyric of love-- when she would turn away from the window, her hair loosely pulled back, her rouge wiped away, and smile wistfully at me.   
_  
. . . that's the trouble with me, isn't it? she asked me once, a little sadly. I won't ever be anything more. I kissed her shoulder and rested my arms about her neck.   
  
You are more, my love, I had whispered into her ear, and her face brightened unaccountably, as if . . .  
  
_I bit my lower lip and pressed the pen to paper in a vicious blot of ink. There was no use in recriminations.   
  
And even less in remembrances.   
  
_Let me hear it! she cried dramatically, earning herself a stern look from Toulouse and a blush from me.   
  
Hear it? I repeated-- words all too common in the vernacular, but my fascination with words had failed me for the moment. The softly dimpled lip that she curved up in a mysterious smile-- oh, what was poetry to that?   
  
You'wd bettew go ahead and wead, Anne, Toulouse advised me, dabbing fiercely at the canvas as he spoke. Ouw Mawguewite is stubbown.  
  
Marguerite scolded, her tone of voice noticeably dimmed by the virtue of speaking between her clamped teeth.   
  
I'd wike to heaw it again, too, Toulouse added, his tone growing more serious. It would hewp me. I'm awmost done hewe, but thewe's something mithing.  
  
Something missing? I hadn't been able to fathom Toulouse's motivation for wasting his talent on my poor verses from the very first-- now I was completely baffled by his apparent energy in illustrating it. I opened my mouth, ready to offer a polite refusal, but I caught an amused glimmer from Marguerite's eyes. They flaunted their beauty at me, laughing at my encounter with modesty. I raised my chin in response, and her eyebrows rose. Does the little one dare to trifle with me? her expression asked coolly.   
  
Yes, Mademoiselle, the firm set of my lips replied. She does.   
  
A Shower, I began, and Toulouse grunted in acknowledgment. Marguerite's lips definitely twitched that time, evidently suspecting a rainbowy verse celebrating the life-giving rain. I smiled slowly and deliberately at her, and was pleased to she that her cheekbones shaded themselves with the most becoming pink.  
  
The sputter of rain, I continued. Flipping the hedgerows and making the highways hiss-- how I love it!   
  
I heard the soft intake of breath from Marguerite's direction, but continued my recital to Toulouse. Part of me rejoiced in the pettiness of disregarding that bewitching countenance-- the rest burned to see those eyes just once more.   
  
And the touch of you, I said softly, drawing on the letters as I spoke them. The very act of speech has always seemed poetry to me in purest form, lips and tongue and teeth moving together to whisper and scream. Upon my arm, as you press against me that my umbrella. . . may cover you. Unable to resist the temptation of Marguerite's delicate chin any longer, I turned to face her. Any pretense that I was reciting this for Toulouse's benefit had dissolved somewhere in the second line. I could feel my heart sharply beating beneath my corset, my skin cool and untouched beneath the fine lawn undergarments, and the lower curl of fear and passion in my entire form. Speaking poetry-- real poetry, not these careful imitations of life that seem to be in vogue-- is the most sensual experience a woman can have. To feel your lover sitting up besides you, her lips spilling forth a sudden breath of Shakespeare. . . that is akin to the unalloyed wonder of a first caress.   
  
Tinkle of drops on stretched silk, I finished even as my eyes traced the fine line of Marguerite's jaw more than a little hesitantly. Wet murmur through green branches.   
  
I remembered the purely kinetic experience that inspired this poem; walking in the rain, feeling the sharp dashes of water slide down my hair, liquid punctuation that finished with a zest. The carriages rushing past and sending white sprays of rain on the flowerbeds that overflowed with colour; gold, purple, crimson flowers that looked as if the gardener borrowed a handful of some particularly gorgeous sunset. But like all my poetry, I never wrote without wishing I had someone to write to. I always dreamed a lover to stand next to me, to lean her head on my shoulder as I slipped on words as other women try out silks.   
  
Marguerite's breath came softly as I finished, and I watched the sharp angle of her mouth soften itself into a gentle circle. Her eyes flicked up to meet mine, her dark irises shaded black with laughing alarm and puzzled wonder.   
  
Toulouse breathed. Don't-- yeth-- Mawguewite-- howd it-- Anne-- go next to hew-- and just--- put youw hand--yeth-- wight on hew awm--   
  
Automatically I obeyed, my small hand gliding down to rest on the pale arm. The skin was cool and smooth beneath my touch, veined with slender lines like expensive marble. I drew in a long breath, realizing how close my fingers were to feeling the pulse at the base-- imagining my lips brushing against that join of palm and wrist, teasingly blowing a warmth breath up to the tiny silvered scar near the curve of the heart line.   
  
Ith it. . . Toulouse whispered hoarsely, dabbing frantically at the canvas. Don't move--- don't--   
  
I don't believe any of us could have moved had we so desired. Toulouse was completely drawn into his canvas, Marguerite's breath was nearly coming in soft gasps, and I was lost in watching her parted lips move slightly. It could only have been a few minutes until Toulouse threw his brush down and smiled shyly up at us, the sweet, slow smile of someone who has finished a labor of months, as a new mother beams at visitors to her birth chamber.   
  
The painting is gone now, one of the many taken by Toulouse's creditors-- why they took his art, God only knows. Probably wouldn't even know which side was up. But, oh, can't I see it even now? The dark glitter lure of water pooling beneath Marguerite's bare feet, the soft fall of her dress-- the faint shadow of my hand pulling on her arm--   
  
Beauty, now the shadow of a love.   
  
_A/N: Lots of love and thanks to everyone who has reviewed! Sorry it's taken so long to get this chapter up-- midterms interfered with more interesting pursuits! 


	4. Entertain Us

Chapter 3: Entertain Us  
  
The windmills turn.   
  
Sometimes I wish they would not-- that they would stay still always, and not sway with the passing wind. And yet as a silent monument to our dreams, they are far more ominous than just a broken machine rattling the storm away. They will flash into life within the next five years, and the halls will ring with music once more. The colours will dance dizzyingly before young eyes. There will be new whores and poets. . . different lyrics, the same strain of melody.   
  
The thought is strangely comforting. Anything, I tell myself sternly, is superior to the shambles of our castle. I have no desire to be here when the inevitable turn of the page occurs, at any rate. Christian will leave within the next few months; he is waiting for the rational now, having found the reason in his book. One day I will succumb to the soft pleas for a different residence, and leave these dank halls for the verdant countryside. France, most likely, or perhaps Italy.   
  
Perhaps. The threat means nothing to me now; for the moment my whims are tolerated. It is enough to hang brocaded curtains over dirty windows, and plump up the cushions on threadbare furniture. It will not always be my choice, but I will cling to that last scrap of defiance until that day comes.  
  
_You've never been inside the Moulin? Marguerite's jaw dropped comically, and she rose unsteadily from her perch near the bar to collapse in the chair across from me. She'd interrupted a spirited discussion between Satie, Toulouse, and I over the importance of love to Bohemianism-- ostensibly to ask Toulouse about some other artist, but really to take advantage of the steady flow of alcohol and flirt with me.   
  
I replied, propping my chin in both my hands and studying her face. Her eyes widened, and she echoed my pose, leaning forward to touch my nose with her own. A moment of silence fell over the table, but then Marguerite deliberately collapsed back, balancing on a rickety limb of her chair and throwing her tiny feet onto the table. Laughing, I slid another glass of wine towards her. Marguerite, I had learned, refused to drink that damn green stuff, deeming it too bitter for her delicate palate.   
  
She took hold of the goblet, pouring it down her throat and teetering dangerously from her precarious position. Toulouse only snorted, and handed Satie and I a fresh glass of absinthe. Taking it, I waved it gently under my nose, careful to avoid the dying flame. It was not difficult for me to understand Toulouse's fascination with the drug. The shimmer of the liquor underneath the crested heap of sugar was utterly exquisite to my poet's eyes.   
  
I take it with sugar! Satie cried, banging his hand down on the table as he spoke. Marguerite seemed to find this inexplicably hilarious, for she collapsed into a fit of giggling that my schoolgirl friends would have envied.  
  
I take it with sugar! Toulouse and I echoed as we tossed back our first swallow of the emerald liquid. I closed my eyes and let my tongue swirl around the bittersweet potion, flicking a few droplets towards the roof of my mouth. My vision of the café began to vibrate, swaying from side to side in a glorious blur of colour and motion. I thought I vaguely heard Satie questioning me, but then a fall of pale green and silver glitter filled my senses. A sweet, high laugh bubbled over the rest of the voices, and the Green Fairy appeared.   
  
I'm the Green Fairy, she breathed into my ear, the gossamer touch of her costume tickling my skin. She giggled again, and flew over to the rim of my glass. There she cast a flirtatious glance up at me, alternately winking and blushing until flying up to my face in a mockery of Marguerite's earlier gesture. She pressed one airy finger to her lips and blew me a kiss, then glided back to the remnants of the absinthe. She studied the liquid's reflection of her pensively, then turned to glare at me.   
  
You've never been inside the Moulin? she mimicked, her voice turning high and cruel. She drew herself up, and I saw a pale red wash over her eyes. Silly girl, entertain us, that's all you see!   
  
I took a sharp breath and felt my hands tremble-- the Fairy had never done this before. My lips moved soundlessly as the entire world seemed to slow, stalling and starting abruptly. I saw myself, spiraling down into those red windmills, falling with Marguerite below me, her arms outstretched to catch me. Her hair was loose, auburn waves spilling over the collar of her white gown. She laughed a little as she spoke, as if she was trying to remind me of an old joke. But I was falling-- falling-- and Marguerite's arms were wavering back and forth.   
  
The rapture the Fairy held me vanished as Toulouse refilled my glass and I gulped it down, this time without sugar. The alcohol burned my throat, but the vision disappeared quickly. The Fairy rose, her eyes green again, and fringed with an innocent spill of dusty lashes.   
  
Marguerite slurred mournfully. Was'ing your-- she tried to get out the word sobriety,' but unfortunately ended up mumbling something about sobwy and pixiths.   
  
I pushed my chair back, suddenly disenchanted with the evening. My head ached, and I was sober enough to realize that I was on my way to being very, very drunk. While the prospect didn't seem that dismal, it wasn't what I wanted. This wasn't what I wanted from Montmartre. A flush of anger shot through me, distilling the alcohol into my veins.   
  
Toulouse, I'm going, I gasped, taking my shawl and tottering to the door.  
  
Marguerite had sprung up, and I barely had time to spin around before I felt her soft lips pressed against mine. She was obviously too inebriated to manage anything longer than that short, perfunctory kiss-- but an entirely different sort of intoxication came over me. I drew back slowly, keeping one hand on her arm. Her face was flushed from the wine, her lips full with the knowledge of mine. She stumbled, the sharp heel of her boot catching onto something, and I steadied her before she fell. She giggled, and a lock of hair swung onto her cheek.  
  
Come with me to th' Moulin she said.   
  
You're drunk, I whispered, captivated in spite of myself. My fingers reached up to hesitantly brush my mouth. The taste of the red wine she'd been drinking. . . the scent of some oriental perfume. . . the hint of a melted candle. Was this what it was like, to feel a woman? To know that for an achingly brief moment, you were joined with all the senses and the soul?   
  
So're you.   
  
All right, then, I said softly.   
  
Here we are now. . . came her slurred reply. Entertain. . .  
  
The Green Fairy whispered it like a lover's endearment. She cast a mock-innocent, inquisitive glance at me. One glass tells the truth, Anne. Are you sure you wanted to drink more?   
  
I leveled my finger at her in return.   
  
I'm drunk, I said darkly.   
  
Not enough, she countered.   
  
I said firmly.   
  
She studied me for a long moment.   
  
Don't say I didn't warn you.   
  
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_A/N: This chapter's a bit shorter than usual, but seeing as how I've got quarter of the next chapter written already, I don't feel bad about it. The Green Fairy took over this chapter. . . she was supposed to have ONE scene. . . honestly, some hallucinations.   
  
My eternal love goes to everyone who's been so kind as to review and encourage me. Thank you! 


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